assassin’s creed

I know the exact moment when the Assassin’s Creed series lost its mojo. When Ubisoft Montreal killed off Lucy Stillman, the overarching plot with Desmond, Abstergo and the end of the world lost a lot of its potency. Sure, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations andAssassin’s Creed 3 were good games, but they didn’t enrapture players with the deeper mythology and modern-day storyline. It ended up as a frayed mess.

That’s why Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is important. It’s a way for Ubisoft Montreal to start over, and the franchises can truly be rebooted. It’s a clean slate on a next-generation of consoles, game director Ashraf Ismail said. “We knew that we were going to ship on next-gen.” And this entry is a way to bring new fans into the series. They don’t need to know any of the previous lore (though it helps) because they play as a new, modern-day character.

The Assassin’s Creed series first foray onto portable systems wasn’t pretty. The problem was that the PlayStation Portable couldn’t handle the open-world gameplay, not mention the fact that it lacked the visual fireworks that the series is known for. And that was a shame because Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines told a pivotal story in the series. It made sense of the Altair flashback in Assassin’s Creed II.

But the franchise’s second attempt on a handheld system looks as though it’s light years better. I had a chance to check out Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, which is coming out Oct. 30 on the PlayStation Vita, at a Ubisoft pre-Gamescom event. From the initial look, the game seems to be a legit entry to the series complete with a new protagonist named Aveline de Grandpre.

She is the daughter of a French merchant who married one of his slaves. The union led to her mother’s freedom and of course hers. It’s an unusual backstory for a heroine and it comes into play in a unique aspect of the game.

What’s wonderful about Assassin’s Creed franchise is that Ubisoft Montreal brings us to worlds that aren’t normally video game settings. I’ve played through about 27 different space stations. I’ve killed millions of Nazis in all the World War II shooters that have spun through my disc drives.

But if you ask how many games are played during the Crusades and in the Middle East, you couldn’t come up with more than five. The team there just has a knack at bringing players into these gorgeous world’s that feel real and are embraced by history.

With Assassin’s Creed 2, Ubisoft chose another fascinating setting: Renaissance Italy. More specifically, fans will be playing as Ezio Auditore di Firenze, a son of a nobleman, as he learns to become an assassin with the help of some friends and Leonardo Da Vinci. (He made that flying machine in the photo.)

Quick Bits are impressions of the downloadable title I’m playing at the moment. It’s a thumbnail sketch of what I think of a game.

Games for the iPhone and iPod Touch were released almost a year ago, and since then, developers have adapted to a device with an all touch-screen interface. One of the leaps forward is the virtual joystick and buttons that sit flush right and left of the screen. It brings a familiar bit of control to a system that’s otherwise far unconventional.

With Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles, Gameloft successfully adapts its next-gen franchise to the smaller screens. The game retains the polygon graphics and general art-style of its console counterpart. This isn’t like the Nintendo DS version of Prince of Persia. The game could pass for a PS One version of Assassin’s Creed.

Altair’s Chronicles itself is mostly side-scrolling with, as I said before, polygons. You move by sliding your thumb around a virtual D-pad and jump and attack by pressing the virtual buttons ringing the side of the screen. But where the game gets into trouble is fitting all the different actions like blocking and strong and light attacks on the screen.

As you can tell from the screenshot, it gets fairly complicated and crowded. The game itself does have some nice touches like a pick-pocketing minigame. For those who want more depth in their iPhone titles, Assassin’s Creed could be right up your alley. But for those who want their iPhone games a little more casual, they could consider looking elsewhere.

For me, Altair’s Chronicles is a little too complex for the platform. It can be hard jumping from platform to platform with the controls and finding the right button to press.

Value: At $10, the game is a bit pricey, but for the content and the amount of it, Assassin’s Creed could appeal to those fans who can’t get enough of Altair. If it was say $7.99 or so, I’d whole-heartedly recommend this.

It’s been a long time since I picked up my PlayStation Portable. Other than Monster Hunter, I haven’t had much of a reason to play. But that could change soon.

Over at Destination PlayStation in Phoenix, Sony announced a couple of new games coming for its hand-held system. According to the PlayStation blog, Motorstorm Arctic Edge (which is also coming to the PlayStation 2), Assassin’s Creed and LittleBigPlanet are coming to PSP. Can I get a woohoo?

On top of that, Giant Bomb is reporting that Rock Band Unplugged is coming to the hand-held as well. Without a touch screen, I don’t know how the hell they’re going to bring that title to a portable and make it true to the original.

This is real news, I promise. Nothing too exciting but as I mentioned today’s pickings are slim.

Ubisoft has joined the group of publishers releasing games for digital purchase through Steam. According to the press release (which I’m 99% sure is actually real despite today being April 1) the initial launch will have 40 games including Assassin’s Creed, Heroes of Might and Magic and Far Cry.